Biofiltration system unveiled at Santa Susana Field Lab

Brandon Steets, of Geosyntec Consultants (right) talks with Ventura County water specialist Bram Sercuat at the site of the new biofiltration system Wednesday at the Santa Susana Field Laboratory near Simi Valley.

Special to the Star

The Boeing Co. on Wednesday unveiled a $600,000 biofiltration system to treat stormwater runoff on a portion of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory, the site of a 1959 partial nuclear meltdown.

David Dassler, the site's program director, said the system, which is on several acres of the 2,850-acre site, technically is not part of the planned decontamination there.

"Its purpose is to manage the stormwater effectively until the cleanup is complete," Dassler said after a news conference at the former Rocketdyne nuclear and rocket engine test facility in the hills between Simi Valley and Chatsworth. "What the panel members said at today's event is that it's a small portion of the site, but it was prioritized because it had the potential to release contaminants."

Boeing bought its portion of the site, about 2,300 acres, in 1996. The rest is owned by the federal Department of Energy and is administered by NASA, he said.

The biofilter uses natural settling, plant uptake, soil processes and specifically designed filter media to capture sediment and pollutants before releasing cleaner water back into the watershed.

Dassler said the importance of the system will decrease once the soil cleanup, expected to begin in late 2015 or early 2016, is completed by the end of June 2017.

"What we anticipate as we complete the soil cleanup for the entire site is that the need for those kinds of devices will diminish because the soil, which is the potential source of contaminants in surface water, will be cleaned up," he said.

"That will be monitored very closely to make sure it's actually true," he added.

The groundwater cleanup is expected to take decades, he said.

John Luker, vice president of the Santa Susana Mountain Park Association, praised Boeing for the new biofiltration system.

"I think it's an excellent idea," he said. "The Boeing Co. has done a great job on their surface-water cleanup."

But Denise Duffield, associate director of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, who works with the Rocketdyne Cleanup Coalition, called Boeing's news conference a "sideshow." She said she's not impressed with the new system.

"Not at all," she said. "It's not going to remove the contamination on the site or in the soil."

Duffield and some other environmental activists want a more stringent cleanup standard used than what Boeing plans, but which the Energy Department and NASA have agreed to.

Dassler said the standard Boeing will use will render the site significantly safer than the standard for open space, which is what the company's acreage eventually will be used for.

Boeing intends to donate its portion of the site for public park land once the soil cleanup is completed, he said.